This month we will be reading
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
By Patrick Radden Keefe

“Empire of Pain is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they
would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early
twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and
Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. It follows the family’s
early success with Valium to the much more potent OxyContin, marketed with a
ruthless technique of co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s
addictiveness. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers
and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to
evade accountability.

A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Empire of Pain is a ferociously compelling
portrait of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super-elite
and a relentless investigation of the naked greed that built one of the world’s great
fortunes.” (Penguin Random House)

640 pp., Penguin Random House, 2021

We hope you will join us for a discussion of this remarkable work of nonfiction.